The Moon and The Wolf
by Haiza Tyri
Summary: We know that Luna Lovegood married Rolf Scamander. Here is the story of how they met... Rated T for some minorly gory details. Could be considered a follow-up to my story "The Holly and The Hawthorn."
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note: This is more or less a follow-up to "The Holly And The Hawthorn," incorporating a few of its original characters, but it can be enjoyed entirely on its own. **

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><p><strong>The Moon And The Wolf<strong>

Luna's Himalayan expedition had already yielded rich rewards. She had collected the larvae of the Fiery Apollo butterfly (storing them in special containers enchanted against their tendency to combust), convinced a Tibetan blue bear to let her clip some hair from her cub (after waiting patiently for two weeks, removing a splinter from the mother's paw, poor thing, and healing the inflamed wound with Essence of Dittany), taken urine from a Pallas cat (even she had found that distasteful!), and gathered up feathers from the abandoned nest of the fabulously beautiful Impeyan Pheasant. Muggles _hunted_ the pheasants, she thought indignantly, and had no idea of the many magical uses of their brilliant feathers. She had nothing against hunting, but at least don't waste the most valuable part!

This afternoon she had left her camp and Tibetan guides behind to climb up the wooded slopes to see if she could find any late, wild Himalayan dragon's egg berries. She'd heard that they grew in these parts of the foothills but had not yet found any, and in a few days she was leaving Tibet. Autumn was coming on quickly and could bring snows as fast as pretty leaves. She had all the supplies she needed for the berries: dragonhide gloves against the mother plant's burn, a warm container to keep the berries in, a little hammer to open one up and see if the flesh inside was usable. When she'd told Regulus Moonshine by Floo Network that the Tibetans had told her where to find some, he'd seemed doubtful, said they were extinct. Maybe they really didn't exist, she thought—and then consoled herself that that was no reason not to look for them.

Climbing the slope through the trees, she paused in a clearing to catch her breath and saw a very peculiar sight. A large metal cage sat under a tree, and in the cage leaning his elbow on a wooden box sat a man reading a book. He had shaggy light brown hair and a neat, pointed, light brown goatee in the imperial style, a long, curving scar from the corner of his left eye to the left corner of his mouth, and a light brown tweed hunting suit, and he was reading _The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore._ That at least meant he understood English.

"I say, you wouldn't happen to have seen any dragon's egg plants about, would you?" Luna asked.

"Further up the slope, near a cave. Hope you have gloves with you. They're particularly nasty this year." He spoke absently in a perfectly normal south-of-England accent, not looking up from his book.

"Thanks." She was about to continue on but stopped. "Do you know that book's completely lies?"

"Of course I do. Why do you think I'm reading it?"

"I have no idea why you're reading it. I read it, and it was very interesting, but not useful. Legends are useful, but not lies."

Suddenly he seemed to realize he was carrying on a conversation in a previously deserted Himalayan clearing and snapped his book closed, staring at her with light blue eyes. "Go away!"

"Sorry?"

_"Go away!_ What are you doing here? Who brought a little girl here? Go away!"

"I'm not a little girl! I'm twenty-one years old, and I brought myself here."

"I don't care! Go away!"

"Why?" She came closer to the cage and saw that it was locked with several large locks. "Who locked you up in here? Have you been kidnapped? Do you need help?"

"_No!"_ he shouted. "I don't need anything! Go away! It's dangerous!"

"Oh, I don't mind dangerous things. Once you've been kidnapped by Voldemort and dueled with Bellatrix Lestrange, I can't imagine you'd be afraid of much."

He stopped shouting at her and stared instead.

"There is a set of keys hanging in that tree. Do you want me to get it for you?"

"_No!_ Don't touch them! Would you _please_ go away? It's going to start soon."

"What is?" She caught him looking up into the sky, where faint stars were showing up against the sunset, and suddenly understood. "Oh. It's the full moon. You're a werewolf."

"Of course I am!" he snarled. "And I _was_ doing just fine with this book until you distracted me."

"I don't see how a book by Rita Skeeter could possibly be of any help. Why don't you just take Wolfsbane Potion?"

"Because I ran out! And no one around here can make any properly. And the book doesn't _help._ It just gives me something to address my aggression against, until my mind is gone." He went slightly red. "I'm normally a very mild sort of person, actually, but at this time of the month I get extremely bad-tempered. My father said he wasn't going to take the brunt of it all the time when I was a teenager, so he found things for me to attack that weren't living. I've read just about every idiotic, badly-researched book and article in existence. Gilderoy Lockhart's books were good for that, for a while, until he stopped writing, as was _The Qibbler,_ until the War, when it actually became sensible, and now Rita Skeeter's books serve the purpose."

Luna's own temper was very seldom ruffled, but aspersions against her father and his precious journal could always do it. "I'd like you to know—" she began, but she was interrupted by a blood-curdling yell.

It didn't look like much had changed, except maybe his beard was longer, and maybe his fingernails were sharper. He was crouched on the floor of his cage, panting.

"Are you sure you really are a werewolf, and that someone hasn't just enchanted your cage to hypnotize you into thinking you are?" she queried.

"_What?_ Of course I'm sure! Are you crazy?"

"Not that I know of. Well, it was just an idea. From an old Muggle book, come to think of it, though in that case it was a serpent, not a werewolf, and a chair, not a cage."

She could see the beautiful moon rising overhead. The man in the cage screamed again and twisted violently. When he was quiet again, his hair long and brown, with black points, she said softly, "I wish I could do something for you, but since I can't, do you mind if I watch? I've never seen a werewolf transform before."

His eyes, still blue, glared at her. "You _are_ crazy."

"No, I just had a teacher once who was a werewolf, but the only people who got to see him transform were Harry, Hermione, and Ron. I always thought it would be interesting. But Professor Lupin died, and I never got to ask him."

"_Lupin? Remus_ Lupin?"

"Yes. Do you know him?"

"I think he did this to me." Then he started shrieking again. He was shuddering when he said, "Fine, stay. But stay out of my line of sight, and stay downwind of me, or it'll practically kill me to see you there and not be able to get at you. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Then go." He slid the lid off the wooden box with clumsy claws, and a number of rabbits hopped out.

"What—what are those for?"

"For me to _eat,"_ he said with a snarl. "Maybe the smell of blood will cover _your_ smell, because I won't be able to care about them if I can smell a human. That's why my guides are gone. That and because they're afraid. _They _never dueled Bellatrix Lestrange, apparently. _Oh, Helga,"_ he spat like a curse and clawed at his chest. "Go! Hide! Don't let me see you! And don't watch me killing these poor things."

She hid, but she did watch. While he was still mostly in human shape he used his claws to neatly dispatch one of the rabbits and smear its blood all over himself. Luna shuddered, but she realized he was doing it to make the rabbit-smell so strong he couldn't smell her. Perhaps she _should _have left, but it was too late now.

It was a harrowing night. She had had harrowing nights before. Most nights in Malfoy Manor, the night after her mother died, the night her father rescued her from what they both suspected was a Jabberwok. She added "Watching a fairly nice man turn into a werewolf" to the list and wasn't sure which was worse, watching him eat the rabbits or watching him claw and howl at the cage and tear his own skin when he couldn't get out. Still, it was interesting. Not everyone got a chance like this.

Only once she couldn't bear sitting still and not helping, when raging got him nowhere and he was sitting and howling disconsolately at the moon moving inexorably slowly across the sky. She shared a name with the moon and felt that her old friend ought not to be so cruel to her new friend. She pulled out her wand and silently nudged clouds over the moon's face. Then she whispered, _"Expecto patronum"_ and sent a small, silver hare in the direction of the cage. The moon gone, the wolf stopped howling and seemed to see the hare, since he couldn't smell it. With a snarl, he jabbed his paw through the bars and tried to sink his claws into it, but he couldn't do that either. He sank down on the floor of the cage with his head between his paws, his nose almost touching the bars, his blue eyes fixed on the hare, which sat unmoving next to the cage.


	2. Chapter 2

Luna woke up suddenly, chilled in the early morning light. She hadn't realized she'd fallen asleep. _Does anyone ever realize they've fallen asleep?_ she wondered. She couldn't figure out what had awakened her.

The voice came again, low, "Are you still there?"

Then she remembered her friend the werewolf and rushed back around the bush she'd been hiding behind. He was a man again, huddled in blood-stained tweeds against the bars of the cage. His hands were covered with dirt, and there was a patch of turned-up dirt right where he could reach through the bars; he must have been burying whatever rabbit bones were left.

"I was afraid you'd run away—or had never been here at all," he said hoarsely. "I thought maybe I'd dreamed you, just at the time when I was coming back human. You're a sort of dream-like person. And I always want companionship the morning after, and there never is."

Luna put her hand through the bars and touched his shoulder. He recoiled from her.

"Don't! I'm—filthy."

"I know why you're filthy, though."

"Please—would you—" He held out his hands.

Luna took out her wand and said, "_Catharidzete,"_ waving it over his hands, and the dirt was gone. She did the same to his face.

"And please—up in the tree, a bag—"

"_Accio_ bag," she requested, and it fell down to her, soft and shapeless.

"There's extra clothes."

"Don't you want me to let you out now?"

"No! It may be daylight, but it's still the full moon. I expect at least one more night of this, possibly two, and I _can_ still turn in the daytime. It's happened before. See, my wand is there." He pointed to a small heap of leaves and twigs, just where he could reach through the bars. "Once I know the fit has completely passed, I use it to fetch the keys and release myself and have a thorough wash. But I'd rather change now, because—" He looked down at himself and shuddered.

Luna crammed the bag through the bars. He pulled out more tweeds.

"If you please—do you mind—" He made a twirling motion with his finger.

"Oh," Luna said. She turned her back to him and stared off up the mountain.

"That was a Greek spell," the man said as he struggled into his clothes in his cramped quarters. "That's unusual. I've only heard Latin ones."

"I like unusual things," Luna said.

"I believe you. What was that book?"

"What book?"

"The one where someone was enchanted with a chair to believe he turned into a serpent?"

"Oh. A Muggle book about a quest to find a lost prince. It's part of a series."

"Maybe I should try those when I'm done with Rita Skeeter's preposterous books."

"I found them to be extremely good books," Luna said.

"Rita Skeeter's?"

"No, the Muggle series. There's a lion who's in charge of everything, and after I read them I was always looking for him to be calling me into his world. Who knows, maybe he still will." She smiled dreamily to herself.

There was silence. She looked behind herself. The man was dressed, sitting and staring at her.

"Did I only dream it, in that half-man, half-wolf state in the early morning, or did you send a silver rabbit to me?"

"It was a hare. My Patronus."

"I _eat_ rabbits! Raw!"

"And my name is Luna. That makes us even, don't you think?" She reached inside the bars and took his bloody clothes, laid them out on the ground, and began to use _Catharidzete_ on them.

"You don't have to…" His voice died away. There was no snarl about him this morning. He seemed reduced, smaller, perhaps also younger than she'd thought. "Luna. Why is that your name?"

"Because my father liked the moon, and there was such a big one shining when I was born. My last name is Lovegood."

"Lovegood?"

"My father was the writer and editor of _The Quibbler."_ She looked at him from under her pale eyelashes. He put a hand over his face.

"Oh, no."

"Don't worry about what you said. It was true. I used to believe implicitly in all my father's theories. I used to think of six impossible things before breakfast. Now I can only think of five." Her voice was sad. "I'm wiser now, a little."

"Is he still alive, your father?"

"Oh, yes. But he doesn't run _The Quibbler_ anymore. As you said, it became 'sensible' during the War, and it did a great deal of good, but afterward it was too sensible, and he gave it up to Lee Jordan to run. Now he's writing a book about the Deathly Hallows." She folded up his clean clothes and put them in the bag, sat down on the ground in front of the cage. "And what is your name?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Rolf. Brilliant name, what? It means 'noble wolf.' My parents practically _wished_ lycanthropy on me."

"But you said Remus Lupin did it."

"I suspect him of it. He was the only werewolf we knew ourselves to be acquainted with at that time. Who else could have done it?"

"He wouldn't ever have done it on purpose. He wasn't like Fenrir Greyback, who loved being a werewolf and wanted to make everyone else into one. If he'd ever thought he did this to another person, he would never have forgiven himself."

"I know," Rolf murmured.

"He's dead, you know. He died in the Battle of Hogwarts. He was one of the bravest men I ever knew. I saw him die."

"Oh, yes…you said you fought Bellatrix Lestrange—in the battle?"

"Yes," she said calmly. "Professor Lupin was fighting a Death Eater named Dolohov who used some kind of spell I'd never heard of to kill him, and when Tonks—his wife, you know—saw it she went flying at Dolohov, but Bellatrix got in the way and killed her. She was Bellatrix's niece, and I often heard Bellatrix talking about how much she hated her. That was when Hermione, Ginny, and I all went after Bellatrix together. And she was better than all three of us. Ginny's mum saved all of us. She was rather wonderful. I think maybe you shouldn't interfere with people when their mothers are around."

"How did you hear Bellatrix talking about this…Tonks? Did you know the Lestranges well?"

"Not at all. I often heard her talking when I was locked up at Malfoy Manor," Luna said matter-of-factly. "You know, when Voldemort was holding court there."

Rolf choked, "You were _there?"_

"Of course I was, when they kidnapped me because of _The Quibbler_ and my father. But I should think you'd know about all this. There must have been a hundred or a thousand books written about it already."

"I haven't had much opportunity for _serious_ literature," he muttered, "between my profession, my affliction, and people chasing me out of town. They don't understand that when I'm human I'm a perfectly nice guy."

"I can tell."

"How can you tell?" he challenged her. "I'm not even fully human right now."

"You lock yourself in a cage far away from people two or three days out of the month, and you smeared yourself with rabbit blood so you wouldn't be tempted to attack me."

"I didn't know you'd seen that…"

He looked so uncomfortable she changed the subject. "But if you're English, where were you during the War?"

Now he looked down at his hands, equally uncomfortable. "Everywhere but in England. My father died at the beginning, and his last wish was my promise that I would stay away from it. I think he was afraid that if the Death Eaters won, they would force all werewolves to join their ranks, and if the right side won, they would assume all werewolves _had_ joined their ranks. So he made me promise. He wouldn't die until I promised, and he was in great pain. So I promised, and then what could I do? Break my father's last wish? One of the things that lets me know I'm human is those little things like honour and faithfulness. So I decided that if I couldn't help in England, I'd help elsewhere. I've made contacts all over the world, and if we'd lost, I'd have been able to start a foreign, underground resistance immediately. But mostly I stockpiled potions ingredients and wand materials in case we lost access to regular supplies. Turned out we didn't need them after all, so I wonder if I was deluding myself." He shrugged.

"Not at all!" Luna cried. "It was so close—we were so close to being in a place where we'd need them—and who else would have thought of such a thing?"

"Well…it was sort of a natural idea. I am a magizoologist and naturalist, after all."

"Are you?" Luna beamed at him. "So am I!"

"Ill-met by moonlight, then."

"Well-met," she contradicted. "I have been in the Himalayas all summer and never met another English person, much less a wizard, much less a wizard who shares my profession. There aren't many people who want to do what we do."

"True, true. Imagine willfully missing out on the dragon's egg berries."

There was distinct humour in his voice, and Luna laughed. "I still haven't found any of those."

"Well, then, you'd better go get some."

"I will. And maybe I'd better go down and tell my guides I haven't died. They're used to me disappearing for a day or two, but if they hear about werewolves in the region… Well, they know I can take care of myself. There was a bit of a kerfuffle about it at the beginning of the expedition, though."

"I can imagine. Well, go then."

"You're always telling me to go away. But I'm coming back. I don't care if you want me to or not. I've never been very good at blindly obeying people."

"I noticed," Rolf said dryly. "I—don't mind. I never knew…"

"What?"

"How comforting companionship was. Especially someone who's interested rather than afraid."

"I would have made the whole expedition just for this," she assured him, and collecting her things, she sped away up the slope.

The dragon's egg berries were perfect. Even the eagerness to get back to talking to a werewolf couldn't dampen the excitement at finding a plant Regulus Moonshine insisted was extinct. The mother plant hissed and spat burning poison at her, but it couldn't hurt her through the long dragonhide gloves, and she plucked a single berry, white with brown speckles, the size and shape of a robin's egg, and gave it a careful tap with her little hammer. It split open with a gush of steam. She let it cool just slightly and scooped out the soft red flesh with a small spoon. It was like a warm, fruity custard, two tiny bites per berry. Who would have thought a dragon planet could have such a gentle inside? The heart, or pit, she threw as far as she could.

"I don't have the same range as an iron-feathered hawk," she told the plant, "but I can at least do my part to perpetuate your species." The hawk, her guides had told her, was the only animal that ate the berries, and they were the only plant matter it ate. It was impervious to the plant's poison and carried the hearts far away, its iron-clad stomach strengthened by the berries' flesh.

She plucked the rest of the berries and put them immediately into her warmed container, and with a tiny vial she captured some of the poison. "You never know when a poison might end up being a cure for something. Thank you for your eggs," she said with a slight bow to the plant and hurried away back down to the clearing.

She had been half-afraid that her new friend would have run away or disappeared or never been there at all, but the cage was still solidly in the clearing, and the man was curled up in a light-brown bundle, sleeping, which made her realize how sleepy she was herself, after her mostly wakeful night.

_I'll go down to the camp later,_ she told herself and put her things under the tree and her head down on one of its roots. She always slept well near trees. They liked her.


	3. Chapter 3

Rolf woke up first. At first he thought that the strange moon-girl hadn't come back yet, but then he saw her sleeping under the tree, her blond hair spread out over its roots. His hand crept out between the bars and almost touched a lock of her hair, until he realized what he was doing and jerked it back.

"Luna!" he shouted. "Wake up!"

She started up, her face imprinted with the tree's bark.

"You can't sleep that close to me. I can attack you from here."

"Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't think." She moved farther away. "I'm done sleeping anyway. I had an idea, Rolf. Why don't you just Apparate to where you can get some Wolfsbane Potion?"

"You have to make the potion fresh every day. You can't just carry it about with you. I'm out of several ingredients, particularly aconite, the active ingredient. And…" His cheeks went red, so that the scar on the left stood out white. "I never got the hang of Apparating," he mumbled.

"Oh, dear. That must be very inconvenient."

"It is," he said shortly.

"Well, why don't I Apparate and get you what you need? I have to take all my things to Regulus Moonshine anyway…"

"You know Regulus Moonshine?"

"He was Potions Professor my last year at Hogwarts. Now he gives me commissions for ingredients. He and a friend of mine from school have been working on a way to keep vampires from wanting human blood. He did something like that for hags, you know."

"I know. He taught me to make Wolfsbane Potion. He's been trying to find a cure for lycanthropy, but no success. I wonder if he gave up."

"I doubt it. He doesn't seem to be a giving-up sort of man. So just give me your list, and I'll go get your ingredients."

Not an hour later, Luna was in Regulus Moonshine's laboratory in England, startling him and his assistant. "Hello, Chador! Hello, Regulus!" she called cheerfully. "Wait until you see what I have for you!"

Both men were tall and dark, but the famous potions master was taller, darker, austere and calm. His assistant was Chador Uil*, Luna's old friend from Ravenclaw.

"Why, Luna, we didn't expect you back today."

Chador grinned behind his back. The potions master ought to know always to expect Luna at unexpected times.

"Well, I really came to ask you for a favor. But look first at all the lovely things. This is for _you,_ sir." She gave the warm container of dragon's egg berries to Regulus and fully enjoyed watching his face as he looked at them. Some days you found out that your father's favorite Crumple-Horned Snorkack did not exist and never had existed, and some days you found "extinct" berries to astonish your Potions professor. "This lot's for you," she said to Chador, taking a smaller box out of her large box, "and in here I've got more for George at _his_ laboratory—and even I can't imagine what he's going to do with Impeyan Pheasant feathers—and there's a box for Young Mr. Ollivander. He's going to love my Tibetan blue bear fur."

"Wouldn't Lucia love to get her hands on that!" Chador said, of his fiancée*, who was a budding wand-maker.

"I would love to give her some, but Old Mr. Ollivander made me promise on my hope of the existence of Father Christmas not to let her have any potential core materials until she has taken her certification."

"Father Christmas?" Chador exclaimed, momentarily diverted. "If _he_ existed, surely _we'd_ know."

Luna shook her head pitying. "My favorite Muggle proverb, Chador—"

"'There is more in heaven and on earth than is dreamt of in our philosophy,'" he repeated with her. "Lucia should never have introduced you to Shakespeare."

They both knew he was only joking. "What I've come for today is _really_ exciting. Can I have some aconite? And the other things on this list?"

Regulus took the parchment and mused over it. "Are you making Wolfsbane Potion, child?"

"Well, I hadn't thought to, but that does make sense. How is _he_ going to do it in a cage?"

They were staring at her the way people often did.

"I met a werewolf," she explained as to small children.

"_Luna!"_ they both exclaimed.

"…whose name is Rolf," she continued, undisturbed, "and is English, though he has a Scandinavian name, and he says you taught him to make Wolfsbane Potion, but he can't get hold of any more aconite, so he's locked himself in a cage."

"Rolf? My dear girl, do you mean _Rolf Scamander?"_

It was a very rare occasion when Luna Lovegood was astonished into silence. This was a very short occasion.

_"Scamander?_ As in _Newton__ Scamander?"_

"He's his grandson. An English werewolf named Rolf? Light hair, blue eyes, tall?"

"Yes, but I don't know if he's tall. He's been sitting in a cage the whole time."

"A cage—what a clever idea. It sounds like him."

"_Scamander!"_ Luna repeated. "He didn't tell me. Newt Scamander's grandson…"

"I never thought to see _you_ star-struck by anything short of a Four-Winged Moon Dragon," Chador teased her.

"He wrote _Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them,"_ Luna said reverently. "He could gain the trust of a dragon or beat one off with a teakettle. He was the youngest Headmaster of Hogwarts, and he created the Werewolf Register. I wonder if he knew his grandson would be on it."

"Here is your aconite. Go back to your werewolf," Regulus said indulgently, "and tell him I hope he's taking care of himself."

Luna smiled at him. "I'll do it," she said as she Apparated.

Regulus and Chador looked at each other. "Did she mean she'll _tell_ him or she'll do the taking-care-of?" Chador asked.

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><p>*Characters from "The Holly and The Hawthorn." (www . fanfiction . nets/6434229/1/)


	4. Chapter 4

Rolf was reading again when Luna appeared. She put her bag down and leaned down to peer into his cage.

"You're Rolf _Scamander."_

"Er…yes. Didn't I mention that?"

"No, you didn't. Newton Scamander was your grandfather."

"Yes, and, you know, I don't go around introducing myself to everyone as 'Rolf Scamander, grandson of the famous Newt Scamander, and, ironically enough, a werewolf. How are you?'"

Luna smiled at him. "You didn't introduce yourself to me at all."

"No, I suppose I didn't. You'll have to excuse me: I'm getting irritable again."

"I noticed." She nodded at the book.

"Were you able to get the ingredients?"

"Regulus gave me enough for ages, it looks like."

He sighed. "I am eternally indebted to him—and to you."

"Now you only have to tell me how to make it."

"You make it? I thought I'd just wait until next month and make it myself."

"And spend the whole night as you did last night? I see no reason for that. I am reasonably good at potions, but you'll have to walk me through the steps. And you can tell me about your family." She was creating a fire and pulling out her travel cauldron.

"You don't take no for an answer, do you?"

"No, I don't think so. I like to learn and do things for myself. If there _is_ no Father Christmas, I want to find out for myself, rather than just taking people's word for it. That always bothers people. I don't see why."

"I suppose they don't want to see you hurt. If you don't mind my saying so, you're a very fragile-looking little thing."

She smiled at him again. "I have been hurt quite a lot. I suppose I'm used to it by now."

He gave her a very troubled look, with his head cocked to one side. She had to resist the urge to scratch him behind the ears.

"Put water in your cauldron and let the aconite leaves steep in it for half an hour over a low fire," he instructed. "Only about a thimble-full of the leaves." As she measured, he said softly, "I will tell you how I became a werewolf."

Her head came up to stare at him. "I didn't like to ask… It seems private—and painful."

"It is. But I will tell you. You seem like you would understand, and I know you are curious."

"Yes," she admitted. "I always want to find out about things. I was in Ravenclaw, after all."

"Were you? I was in Hufflepuff."

"_Were_ you?" she asked in her turn. Somehow she'd expected—

"You assumed Gryffindor, didn't you? My father was in Gryffindor, but my grandfather was in Hufflepuff. I almost went into Gryffindor, but Hufflepuff suited better. I was a _very_ inoffensive child."

"That's not the only criterion for being in Hufflepuff," Luna said, stirring the leaves with her wand. "I don't know if it even is a criterion. One of the most offensive people I know was a Hufflepuff. Zacharias Smith." She frowned at her wand. "He was worse than Draco Malfoy, because Draco never pretended to be anything but what he was, an arrogant, Pure-Blood Death Eater. Zacharias fooled everyone, but he was a sneak and a coward. Sometimes it makes me angry."

"I can't imagine you get angry often."

"No. But I know why you were put in Hufflepuff."

"Why?"

"Because you're noble and brave because you're kind. Gryffindors are kind because they're noble and brave. There's a difference."

After a silence, Rolf said, "That might be an over-generalization, but I can't bring myself to object to it."

"When were you at Hogwarts?"

"I was only there for three years, from 1985 to 1988. You would have still been a baby."

"Not quite. I was born in 1981. But you're only twenty-seven or twenty-eight? You're younger than you look. I thought you were. It's the beard, I think."

"It _will_ grow at this time of the month. The only thing I can do is keep it decent-looking. But it's more than the beard. It's being a werewolf. It's…traumatic. It makes you grow up too fast, look old too fast. Do things to yourself." He ran his thumb over the scar on his face. "But anyway, yes, I am twenty-eight."

"How did someone as old as your grandfather have a grandson as young as you? He was nearly a hundred when he died, and that was the year before I started school. And I've never even heard of you."

"No, you wouldn't. My family have seen to that. A werewolf in the Scamander family—what a disgrace." For the first time bitterness tinged his voice. "I haven't seen any of my family members in years."

"And yet you're the one following in your grandfather's footsteps."

"Yes, well… Anyway, my age and my grandfather's. He married young, of course, right out of Hogwarts, to my grandmother Porpentina, and while he was working for the Ministry they had a number of children, all in the 1920s. I have aunts and uncles old enough to be my grandparents. Most people don't know that his wife went with him on many of his trips, and they seem to have treated them all as a honeymoon, because there always seemed to be another child born the following spring." His eyes twinkled at her. "But then in the '30s he became Headmaster at Hogwarts—the youngest in history, I'm sure you know, only in his thirties himself, and was rather too busy to have any more children. He always said keeping track of a thousand schoolchildren was harder than keeping track of a herd of Vanishing Quizzals. Schoolteacher was not his favorite profession. He was always meant to be traveling the globe in search of elusive beasts. Why do you smile like that?"

"He sounds like me and my father."

He smiled back. "Perhaps he was. Oh—add the Munkle now and stir clockwise three times. Then bring up the heat a little and add the Essence of Fire Orchid without stirring."

She did. "Please go on."

"Where was I? Oh, yes. In the 1940s he was involved with protecting various magical creatures from the Muggle war, and then afterward he went traveling again, he and Porpentina. They went to Russia in search of the Ukrainian Ironbelly dragon, which no Englishman had ever seen at the time, and while they were away, my father was born, in 1950. My grandfather was fifty-three, and my grandmother was actually older, fifty-five, and my aunts and uncles have always secretly opined that my father, Leopold was his name, was a little Russian foundling they picked up and not their child at all. Especially when he was sorted into Gryffindor. Scamanders have always been in Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw. It was nonsense, of course. My father was more like my grandfather than any of his siblings. But that is how I came to be born in the 1970s when all my cousins were born in the '50s and early '60s."

"And what about your mother? You've never mentioned her."

"You've never mentioned yours!" he flared abruptly. "Ugh—sorry. I'm getting all crawling and burning under my skin again."

"It's alright," she assured him. "I understand. Will the potion be done in time?"

"Should be. Just add one drop of bitter lemon oil and stir counter-clockwise until it turns brown. My mother's name was Ylva. She was a true discovery by my grandparents. They went to Scandinavia in search of the Norwegian Ridgeback and came home with her. She was Swedish. She was beautiful—I barely remember her. My grandfather said he'd intended all the while for my father to marry her, but my grandmother said no one was more astonished than he when they did. Let me see the color of that. Yes, that's right. Now remove the drop of oil."

Luna gave him a puzzled look. "Remove a drop of liquid from a liquid?"

"Oh, it'll come. Just say_, 'Accio lemon oil,'_ and really mean every molecule of it. If you've done it right, it should all turn green."

She concentrated and drew the single drop of oil back out of the potion, laughed to herself when the liquid instantly went bright green. "Is that right?"

"Exactly right. Regulus would be impressed. Just let it boil until it begins to turn blue."

"How do you know Regulus?"

"He and my father were at school together in the '60s. Opposed each other in Quidditch but were fast friends in all else. Now where was I?"

"Your mother," Luna said softly, peering down into her cauldron without quite seeing it.

"Oh, yes." He fiddled with his book. "She died during the First War. I was five years old. It was just one of many attacks by Death Eaters, one of many deaths in those days. Not significant at all."

"Mothers' deaths are always significant," Luna murmured. "They change the children forever."

"Yes. What changed primarily for me, other than—you know, not having a mother—was that we started traveling, my father and I. The traveling was good—it suited us both—but it led to all _this._ I don't know that I can say it wouldn't have happened if she'd never died, but that's what I think. It was the summer after my third year at Hogwarts. I liked Hogwarts well enough, but I liked traveling better, and the few times I got in trouble at school was when I contradicted the Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures professors, because they were always wrong about certain non-English species. In the summers my father and I traveled together. We went to Sweden for the first time that year, 1988. It's a beautiful place—I always go back there when I need some peace. Then we went to Germany, and that was where we fell in with Remus Lupin. From what I've learned since, I know he had fought the Death Eaters in the War, but he couldn't get a proper Ministry job afterward, so he wandered about a bit, learning ways to oppose the Dark Arts. By that point—I think he was lonely. It's very lonely being a werewolf. People are afraid of you all the time, even when there are only a few days per month when you're dangerous, and if you can take reasonable precautions, there's much less danger. Do you know what Harry Potter's father and his friends did for him?"

"Yes. Harry told us once, at school."

_"Such_ a thing to do," he said wistfully. "But by then the Potters were dead, Sirius Black was in Azkaban, and that other friend was disappeared, and no one wanted Lupin around. He should have sent us away, but I have a feeling he couldn't bear to. Human contact—English contact. People who weren't afraid of him. He must have been just my age," he realized. "Late twenties. I think my father was as fascinated by him as you are by me—my affliction. He let us know straightaway what he was, and we didn't leave him. We should have done. He was trying to make his own Wolfsbane Potion, but he wasn't very good at potions, and I don't think it worked. All I remember of that night is getting dragged from my tent—a great rush of pain and fire and the whole world full of snarling and roaring and teeth—and feeling this overwhelming desire to kill…" He gasped, put his hands over his face, dug his short fingernails into his skin. "This was a _bad_ time to talk about this."

"It's blue," Luna said.

"_What?"_

"The potion."

It was late afternoon, the sun already edging toward the horizon. He took a few panting breaths. "Then remove it from the heat and take up your wand. You must be steady and very calm. Do you know the Blasting Charm? Not the Curse, but the smaller Charm."

"Yes…"

"Let me see. The rock over there."

In a moment, the rock some distance away exploded with a small _bang._

"Very good. Now, can you control it more? Make it smaller."

He made her try several times and coached her until she could make a leaf go up with a tiny _poof._

"That's very well done. What you want to do is direct that same power at the surface of the potion. You want it to skip over the top, like skipping rocks on a lake, rather than going straight in. if you don't get it, don't worry. The worst you can do is destroy the potion. I've lasted this long without it; I can last longer."

Luna turned and smiled at him, lifted her wand, and lightly skipped the charm across the surface of the potion. It instantly turned a paler shade of blue.

Rolf laughed. It was the first time she had heard him laugh. "Well done. You are very talented. Few people could have done that on the first try."

"You are a very good teacher. You remind me a little of Harry that way, your patience. What now?"

"Now just let it sit for a few minutes. I will tell you the rest. Not that there is much left to tell."

Luna sat down and fixed her eyes on him. He took a deep breath.

"My father had to Stupefy me to keep me from killing him that night. I was weak and in pain, so the normal difficulties of restraining a werewolf weren't present. Lupin was gone, and we never saw him again. Some people…you know some people abandon their children when they're turned? My father never did. I never went back to Hogwarts, but we traveled, and when the full moon came, he would keep me Stupefied. It grew more difficult as I got older, but finally Regulus found out the truth about why we were avoiding everyone we knew and taught us both to make Wofsbane Potion. He also insisted Remus Lupin hadn't done it." He shrugged. "Well, after that it was much simpler. Our family was still leery of me, but not my grandfather." He smiled. "He taught me how I could use my isolation to further my profession.

"And then—the Second War started, and my father died. Just another casualty of the Wars. Just another wizard dead in the long list of the dead. He died in a battle, one of many we lost. But I don't need to go on. You know as much about that as I do."

Smoke was drifting across the surface of the potion. Luna stared down into it. "Does it comfort you that your parents didn't make your family even more famous by their deaths?"

Rolf jerked, then went still. "I…don't know…"

"I wish my father had not made our family famous by trying to save my life. He betrayed Harry to get me released from Malfoy Manor. That was wrong." She turned and looked at him. "What did Regulus tell you about Lupin?"

"Uh—that he wanted to explain—about that night. That he felt guilty, as well he should. Even that when he went to teach at Hogwarts he rather hoped I would be there, though I was too old by then. Apparently he thought that if Dumbledore let a werewolf be a teacher he'd let one be a student, and I might want to go finish my education. But I didn't, and even if I had, I couldn't have stayed if _he_ was there. Regulus has always insisted Lupin had never done it. But I _know_ what it is to have the purest of intentions and _still_ to lose your mind and want only to kill—and eat. Usually I don't blame him for it, not since I know what it is like, but I've never wanted to see him again. And now it's too late to hear what he had to say. That's when I started using this cage, though, realizing that a werewolf never can really trust himself. I'm—I'm sorry to say this about your teacher. I can tell you liked him."

"Yes. We all did. He _taught_ us. That was more than any of our other DADA professors did. But he almost killed Harry once."

"_Harry Potter?"_

"Yes. Just as you said. The nicest person in the world, but he still lost his mind once. Only Sirius Black saved them. Harry, Hermione, and Ron. Harry told us, later. He _could_ have attacked you. Only…I hope he didn't. You must be a very sweet person in normal life, Rolf."

He went red. "Why?"

"Because you're such a _nice_ person even when you think you're irritable."

"Oh—er—the potion is done."

"Just in time." She glanced out at the lovely sunset. "How much do you need?"

"About a quarter of a pint."

"Such a small amount, for something that keeps you from losing your mind."

"It tastes nasty enough."

Luna lifted a small rock with her wand and placed it inside the cage, transfigured it into a goblet, and directed a stream of smoking blue liquid into it. Rolf picked it up and smelled it. "Smells alright." He tasted it and shuddered. "Urgh. Tastes alright." He lifted the goblet to her. "Here's to you, moon-girl." He downed it in one go, making faces.

"Do you want me to unlock your cage?"

"_No!_ No. This potion is untried. I'll stay in the cage tonight, whatever happens. I won't know until I turn again. But look here, you've been here all day talking to me. You must be sick of me, or at least starving."

"I'm not sick of you. But I will eat my dinner." She pulled something like a Tibetan version of a pasty out of her bag. "Would you like one?"

"My dear girl, when I'm hungry, I want something _raw._ Anyway, I ate earlier while you were gone. My guides brought me some…well…food."

"Did you ever try sushi? It's raw."

"_Fish?"_

She shrugged. "Don't wolves eat fish?"

"Maybe, but not fiddling little piles of it on lumps of rice!"

"Not even when you're fully human?"

"When I'm fully human, my tastes run more to very large pieces of venison."

"Not rabbits?"

"No. I don't ever eat rabbit in my normal state. The idea makes me sick."

"How odd."

"Not at all. It's—_auggggh!"_

It had begun again. Luna said, "Do you want me to go away?"

"No—no—you see, I'm taking it on faith that your potion worked."

Even if the potion worked, the transformation was no less painful. When the moon had fully risen, a light brown wolf with black points lay panting in the cage. It got up slowly and bared its teeth at Luna with a low growl.

"Rolf, can you understand me?"

The growl stopped. The wolf cocked its head in a manner so reminiscent of the human Rolf that she grinned.

"That is you, isn't it?" She put out her hand, and the wolf snarled. She quickly withdrew it. "Alright, I'm keeping my distance. You _are_ snappish, aren't you?"

The wolf lowered his head in an attitude of shame, and she laughed. "It _is_ you. I don't suppose you can talk. That would be the most frustrating thing. I like to talk, even if no one likes to listen."

Blue eyes fixed on her, the wolf settled down on the floor of the cage and put his muzzle down on his paws. She smiled at him.

"Tonight I will sleep here properly. Look." She conjured up herself a pillow and pulled a bright square of fabric from her bag. When she shook it out, it expanded itself into a crazily-patched quilt. "My mother made me this, years ago. She would be glad to know I use it for camping on my expeditions. No tent, just the beautiful sky. I suppose you don't think it is so beautiful. How sad it would be to hate the moon."

He cocked his head at her again. She snuggled up under her mother's quilt. She was quite close to the cage.

"Nights like this remind me of the day my mother died," she said after a few moments. "Only because they're absolutely unlike the day my mother died. Cold, clear, bright nights. The day she died was hot and muggy. I was nine. I was watching her practice spells outside in our garden. She was so brilliant at them. She could do so many wordless spells. She was always trying out new ones, doing ones everyone said couldn't be done wordlessly, combining them… She was so creative. And then suddenly she blew up."

He jerked his head up and stared at her.

"Blew up—exploded. There was a great bang, and I was knocked off my stool, and dust was blowing everywhere. Her dust. I've worked out since that she was probably trying a combination of _Confringo _and her own household cleaning spell, wordlessly, maybe so she could blow something up without making a mess. But she was never very good at cleaning, so…"

He put his nose against the bars and gave a faint whine. Luna put her hand through the bars, and he laid his face along her hand, soft and warm.

"You really are a Hufflepuff." She stroked his fur with her other hand. "Her dust went all over the garden. I have often thought that the wonderful plants we were able to grow after that were from her. Especially the Dirigible Plums. She tried to get that plant to take root for the longest time. It kept floating away. But after that it stayed and grew beautifully." She smiled and scratched between his ears. "It really is a beautiful night." She yawned. "Do you mind if I go to sleep?"

He got up deliberately and turned so that his back was against the bars of the cage. Luna understood. She turned over and put her back against his warm, soft fur, pulled her quilt up around her ears, and was asleep in an instant. The wolf lay and gazed up at the moon, thinking human thoughts and controlling inhuman impulses.


	5. Chapter 5

_ It was all pain and darkness. He was screaming, being dragged. Snarling. Moonlight. The moonlight hurt. His shoulder was on fire, his head striking rocks. Then a grey rush—a large body flew over him, hit what was dragging him. Over his head, all around him, growling, snarling, tearing, two great beasts at war. Suddenly a black streak flew away, whimpering. Grey eyes floated in the world above him, gentle in a blood-smeared face; a tongue cleaned up his wound; a muzzle pointed to the moon and howled piercingly; and then a grey streak was flying away after the black one. He was alone—the moonlight hurt—he was beginning to feel hungry. Red, tearing need filled him—he smelled something, a good, tender, warm smell that made the hunger good. He launched himself up and at it—and the world exploded with a bang, and _"Stupefy!"_ rang in his head for a very long time._


	6. Chapter 6

Rolf woke with a gasp. He was soaked with sweat, lying in a cage, but he was human. He lay, his heart pounding, trying to make sense of what his dream was telling him.

He heard a soft laugh and bolted upright so abruptly he knocked his head on the bars. He groaned and held his head. There was the moon-girl, still asleep and chuckling to herself in her sleep. _There_ was a sound to wake you the morning after you'd been violently turned into a wolf. He reached out his hand and smoothed blond wisps back from her face, sighed.

Turning away, he felt for his wand (oak, with dragon's heartstring) and brought the keys to his hand, unlocked the cage, got out and stretched himself for the first time in two days, worked out all the kinks in his limbs and back, and went behind the tree to change his clothes. When he looked as reasonably human as he felt, he pointed his wand at the cage and said, _"Reducio."_ It immediately shrank down to a tiny block of wire, which he put in his pocket.

Luna was still asleep. He knelt beside her. "Moon-girl, wake up."

She opened her eyes and smiled at him. "Why, Rolf, you shaved off your beard. I was right. It does make you look much younger."

"I remembered something," he said gravely, "for the first time. I never could quite remember that night before, not clearly. Maybe talking about it made me dream about it. It wasn't Lupin at all. There were other werewolves in those woods in Germany, and Lupin said to us, 'I will protect you from them.' And he did. It was a black wolf that attacked me. Lupin was grey. It was going to eat me. He attacked it, drove it off, made sure I was alive and let my father know where I was before pursuing the other werewolf. No wonder we never saw him again. My father Apparated me to expert help immediately. Regulus said Remus felt guilty—it was for not preventing the attack altogether. For letting me be turned. But he saved my life. I'd rather be alive—and have to sit in a cage two days out of the month—than not be alive at all."

"I'm so glad," Luna said softly.

He spread out his arms, and she got up and burrowed herself into them, hugging him with a strength that surprised him.

"I thought of something last night," he said, "that I wished I could tell you."

"What?"

"I could be reconciled to the moon, if she were like you."

Wide, grey eyes blinked at him. "That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me. Even Harry never said anything like that."

"And I just realized something, moon-girl."

"What?" she asked again.

"I'm going to marry you."

"I know," Luna smiled and kissed him on the nose. "You know what I think?"

"What?"

"We should go to Egypt and see if we can find a Heliopath. They've been seen there recently."

"Yes," Rolf said. "We should."

**The End**

* * *

><p><strong>Author's note: Obviously there's nothing in the canon that says Rolf Scamander was a werewolf, but I thought it was highly appropriate, given that his name means "Noble wolf" and Luna's means "Moon."<br>**


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